Do we take albums too seriously?

[Emadyville]

I was discussing this a few days ago with some vets in the vets section, and am only now making this thread.

I had this idea that, we as eminem fans (but fans of other artists, rap or not, solo or groups as well) take ems albums too seriously in terms of how great they are or are not. My point is simply this, I think we take an album and its songs and worry too much about it being a great album, just okay, decent, bad, etc. We don't take his entire body of work into account at any given time, we too often worry about one album that's his best, the album that's his worst, or the album most recently released and compare them.

This came to me when someone mentioned in a topic about My Darling and how it should have been on Relapse (which I agree), and how that would have made the album so much better, or at the very least just better.

But in reality...why does it matter? He still released the song...and I'm not saying by any means I don't do this, I'm a prime example of trying to saying this album is great because of certain songs, and this album is bad because of these certain songs.

I just wanted to see what you all think, cause I think most of us (yes, still including me) take his albums too seriously in terms of ranking them and ranking him based on albums versus just ranking or judging him based on his entire body of work. I mean most would agree Lose Yourself was one of his all-time greatest songs and obviously his most successful, yet it didn't appear on a solo album.

Thoughts?

Edit: Here's an example of what I mean. If these songs all appeared on one album (taking what I've seen to be favorites on here, as well as successful singles in charting/sales) we would all shit our pants saying he made the best album ever hands down:

No Order:
Lose Yourself
Sing For the Moment
Rock Bottom
Not Afraid
Guilty Conscious
The Way I Am
Love the Way You Lie
Without Me
Like Toy Soldiers
The Real Slim Shady
Till I Collapse
Stay Wide Awake
Crack a Bottle

But obviously we'd all say that's not possible, they are all from different eras, with diff voices, different sounds, different beats for the time period, etc. Yet he still made all of these songs, they just weren't on the same album.

[EminemBase]

Well I tend not to pit his albums against each other much now as it doesn't make much sense.

You can only really compare like to like and I can't judge Relapse against The Eminem Show when The Eminem Show is a rock-rap, political, introspective album and Relapse is an abstract, bouncy, bombastic, spazzy sounding album with psychopathic and sort-of, thematic, fantasy presentation...

It'd be like trying to compare a drama to a horror, I can only really compare drama to drama.

I could actually judge The Eminem Show against Encore or The Slim Shady LP against The Marshall Mathers LP, as they're paired albums, they lead in to each other and are of the same world.

Generally speaking though, I judge each album by its individual merits. I don't really care where the album ranks, I just want it to be good, I want to be blown away.

I could however step outside of that and I would still rank The Marshall Mathers LP as his greatest album, just as, a piece of art, just as: a presentation, a project. The thought put in to it, the consistency of it, the cohesiveness of it etc. - there's many ways to judge and describe and analyze an album or a piece of work, but I think more generic concepts such as 'cohesiveness' might make it more possible to judge all the albums / rank them as a whole, in a more simplistic way.

But yeah, unless I'm writing an article, I don't care or think about it. I just want a classic.

[Emadyville]

Well I tend not to pit his albums against each other much now as it doesn't make much sense.

You can only really compare like to like and I can't judge Relapse against The Eminem Show when The Eminem Show is a rock-rap, political, introspective album and Relapse is an abstract, bouncy, bombastic, spazzy sounding album with psychopathic and sort-of, thematic, fantasy presentation...

It'd be like trying to compare a drama to a horror, I can only really compare drama to drama.

I could actually judge The Eminem Show against Encore or The Slim Shady LP against The Marshall Mathers LP, as they're paired albums, they lead in to each other and are of the same world.

Generally speaking though, I judge each album by its individual merits. I don't really care where the album ranks, I just want it to be good, I want to be blown away.

I could however step outside of that and I would still rank The Marshall Mathers LP as his greatest album, just as, a piece of art, just as: a presentation, a project. The thought put in to it, the consistency of it, the cohesiveness of it etc. - there's many ways to judge and describe and analyze an album or a piece of work, but I think more generic concepts such as 'cohesiveness' might make it more possible to judge all the albums / rank them as a whole, in a more simplistic way.

But yeah, unless I'm writing an article, I don't care or think about it. I just want a classic.

Yeah I was talking more of a whole as an eminem community so to speak, being the forum obviously, that we often judge albums too much instead of judging his entire body of work. Like, if Lose Yourself was on encore, people would prolly say it was a great song on a shitty album (assuming this obviously) instead of saying its one of the best rap songs of all time. We'd worry more about the album it was on than the song itself more often than not, and again, as whole community of em fans.

[EminemBase]

Well I tend not to pit his albums against each other much now as it doesn't make much sense.

You can only really compare like to like and I can't judge Relapse against The Eminem Show when The Eminem Show is a rock-rap, political, introspective album and Relapse is an abstract, bouncy, bombastic, spazzy sounding album with psychopathic and sort-of, thematic, fantasy presentation...

It'd be like trying to compare a drama to a horror, I can only really compare drama to drama.

I could actually judge The Eminem Show against Encore or The Slim Shady LP against The Marshall Mathers LP, as they're paired albums, they lead in to each other and are of the same world.

Generally speaking though, I judge each album by its individual merits. I don't really care where the album ranks, I just want it to be good, I want to be blown away.

I could however step outside of that and I would still rank The Marshall Mathers LP as his greatest album, just as, a piece of art, just as: a presentation, a project. The thought put in to it, the consistency of it, the cohesiveness of it etc. - there's many ways to judge and describe and analyze an album or a piece of work, but I think more generic concepts such as 'cohesiveness' might make it more possible to judge all the albums / rank them as a whole, in a more simplistic way.

But yeah, unless I'm writing an article, I don't care or think about it. I just want a classic.

Yeah I was talking more of a whole as an eminem community so to speak, being the forum obviously, that we often judge albums too much instead of judging his entire body of work. Like, if Lose Yourself was on encore, people would prolly say it was a great song on a shitty album (assuming this obviously) instead of saying its one of the best rap songs of all time. We'd worry more about the album it was on than the song itself more often than not, and again, as whole community of em fans.

Hmm, I think in general people may tend to do that sometimes...

I don't really think the greatness of a song would be lost on people if it was on a not-as-great album though. As the 8 Mile Soundtrack was hardly a masterpiece, and "Lose Yourself" is on that.

Encore is obviously a missed opportunity and overall shitty / split album though and I've always said "Crazy In Love" has two of his best verses on the subject, so I don't really think I do it that much.

I dunno, I just want a classic now, Relapse was ruined by two songs for me. And Recovery was ruined by the production. To me, those are two potential classics that got just-about-ruined by silly compromises, it's so frustrating that he's done that twice. I wish he'd stop compromising.

[Emadyville]

^ And I think that shows my point really well, cause I agree with you on the fact that on certain albums, specific songs, lyrics, production, features, concepts, or whatever made me rank or look at the album as less than it really is instead of just accepting it and how great the rest of the album is.

[EminemBase]

^ And I think that shows my point really well, cause I agree with you on the fact that on certain albums, specific songs, lyrics, production, features, concepts, or whatever made me rank or look at the album as less than it really is instead of just accepting it and how great the rest of the album is.

Mhm, but... I don't discredit the rest of the songs.

As in, just because a few songs 'ruined' Relapse for me doesn't mean I think badly of those other songs, I rate them all individually as awesome.

But just as a body of work, as a 'singular presentation' - it's tarnished.

Just like: if there was a really shitty scene in an otherwise great movie... that would to a degree ruin the movie. When I think of great movies - basically all of the scenes are great, that's why it's a great movie, because all or almost all of it works, as one. Bad movies tend to lack that coherence.

(and one song relative to an album is maybe even more significant than a scene is to a movie, as if an album is comprised of fifteen tracks are two out of fifteen are really bad or out of place... that's maybe like, nearly a quarter of a movie being bad. It would really stand out.)

But I know what you're saying.

[Fa-Q]

It's kind of, at least to me, like when some movies have great quotes or moments but some movies are all around amazing. Like the movie Drive is flawless in my mind, but some of my favorite movies are because of certain moments or quotes instead of the whole movie...make sense?

[kiki]

Ugh honestly I don't really vcare for the overall feel...I mean he made GREAT albums and Till I Collapse has probably saved my life but there's also Drips on that album so...you know?

[Guess_Who]

We take EVERYTHING too seriously.

[Norway kills]

Critical fans are a good thing. I'm glad this forum consists of more than obsessed Stans.

[Sam.]

The thing is, we expect every thing that he does to be extremely dope, "It from Eminem, it has to be dope, baby" kinda attitude. It's not like he sits with the same vibe and writes his Album's. He has always said that he writes about things that inspire him at the moment of time, or as per the beat, the feel that he gets from it.

If he tones down a little bit, that doesn't mean you can assume that he did it all on purpose. It's what he felt that can be said in that song. Plus, his physical and mental condition also play an important part. Encore is an prime example, which explains that he was not that good, considering he was high on drug intake. What goes on behind the boards is not visible or known to us, go figure. We can only assume, that's it.

He has delivered classics, big enough that anything that goes even an inch below is sparked by comparison and negative thoughts. He's a human, not a machine. He does what he thinks he can deliver.

What we do is; we actually stereotype his music. In short as Emady said, we take his Albums toooooo seriously. People forget that each Album carries a different message, tone and direction. No two Album are same, not even in style. So comparing them is not right, but at the same time comparison is also needed, just to act as a feedback. So that he can improve upon the mistakes that he done in the previous record.

I swear to god that he has such bipolar fans that give him such mixed reviews that he his confused in determining the direction for his next. Take Relapse for example. Fans hated it, now they love it, fuck yea. Just to please them he does Recovery, just after that....what does he get. "Hey man Recovery's dope, bur for me, I love Relapse even more". Hunh? Why so serious? Both Albums are different, why the sudden change in taste. It's useless to compare Albums. He doesn't looks at his Albums in the same way when he does it. Something different, that's what he aims for and delivers.

You can't expect all those songs in one Album (reffering to the list in the OP), then his next following the one that you suggested wont be the same. Again..fucking comparison. What we need is to think with an open mind. Just enjoy the record, move on.

[EminemBase]

We take EVERYTHING too seriously.

[James Deuce]

Why is this question being asked on an Eminem board?

Answer is obviously yes.

[Relapse.]

It's kind of, at least to me, like when some movies have great quotes or moments but some movies are all around amazing. Like the movie Drive is flawless in my mind, but some of my favorite movies are because of certain moments or quotes instead of the whole movie...make sense?

Dam. That was a solid mini-paragraph. I feel that, some OF songs I really like cuz of maybe a line or two.

[Emadyville]

I think people are too concerned with him putting out a classic (not at this forum specifically, but in general). Not everything HAS to be a classic.

I almost feel like this is the biggest problem...not necessarily a problem but is expected all the time. Sadly, I am someone who always wants a classic.

The problem may be in that, as eminem fans, and hardcore fans like the majority seem to be at least on this forum (and a bunch of people I know) we want him to succeed. We not only want him to be successful but we want everyone else, rap fans or music fans to love his music, we want him to be popular, go against the grain, be the best, make classics, and be regarded as the best rapper ever.

It's not a bad thing, but I think a lot of that plays into us being so critical of every album, song, etc.